Actually some douche dropped super toxic foam in the water supply where I live and I'm trying to save up for a water filter :'D

Yvonne, that's THE problem! I use a reusable bottle every day at work, I fill it at the tap and don't buy any plastic bottles anymore. if you don't like that taste there are filters or you just let the chlorine evaporate. I'm really astonished to learn that tap water in cities isn't reliable (of course I don't speak about remote places). When you know the money and energy going to bring water directly to everyone's home I don't understand there are places where this water contains toxic substances. This should be your priority!

i agree with your point, but i do want to point out that not all of us have drinkable water at the tap. A lot of us live in the country, where the tap water comes from a "filtered" well or from the city's water, which isn't always reliable, and there have actually been several scandals where the water provided from American cities have had substances in them that made people very sick. There's also the matter of drought in some areas of the country that makes drinking from the tap impossible. I'm not arguing with your point; if you can drink from the tap you should instead of wasting your own money and creating more plastic waste, but not all Americans have that option.

Oh also you can reuse water bottles to pretend you're drinking water and not vodka

In some cities, such as my own, they use well water and I've tested my water and found extremely high levels of nitrates on and off. High nitrates can cause blue baby syndrome. Not to mention the tap water often has high nitrite levels which are extremely toxic to my fish so they only get bottled water. Granted I use the same 5 gallon jug over and over again, but I can see how other people would just buy bottled 1 gallon jugs

We use plastic for MANY things. For instance if we travel, we take portable water in plastic bottles - to work, to the gym, to the beach, biking, etc. And other beverages come in plastic, not just water. People use water in plastic in their homes if the tap water isn't very good. There are many reasons we use plastic.

Richard, I chose Americans because the article IS ABOUT American habits.... "Statistically, an average American uses about 167 plastic bottles each year"